Dealing with overpaid government employees is a fact of life for many people. Those times tend to be few and far between, fortunately. When they do occur, they can either be a surprisingly painless experience, or they can be a miserable ordeal perpetuated by an inbred autistic who has been guaranteed a “meaningful place in society” by the brilliant minds behind the no-longer-needed ADA. Two days were needed to do something which could have been completed in one day, due the cognitive dysfunction of a fat pig who couldn’t clarify her own statement.

Wednesday the 20th was designated as the day to renew my WA state identification (WA I.D.) and my license to carry a concealed weapon (CCL/CWP). Documentation was needed for my I.D., as it had expired at the end of 2015 and I was going to upgrade it to what is called an “Enhanced Identification.” Enhanced I.D. is used here in the USA by select states, and qualifies as a passport of sorts if we wish to travel to Canuckistan or Mexico. This is subject to change at any time based on the whims of the current administration.

Anyway, we chose to get my I.D. renewed first because we thought that it wouldn’t take as long as the CCL renewal, and doing the CCL would be on the way home. Smooth sailing wasn’t to be, as the waiting-room was full by the time we arrived. There were only three employees in attendance even though there were six service windows in all, so they were obviously short-staffed.

We waited a full half-hour before the imperious bitch waved her hand in our general direction. At the counter, her sniffy attitude indicated that her workday was done and she wasn’t going to be of any help. She was condescending and rude and insisted that I didn’t have the proper documentation, proclaiming in a haughty tone: “You need to provide your birth certificate as proof of residency.” Um, what? A birth certificate only proves that I was born in this country. It doesn’t prove residency, as I wasn’t born yesterday – literally. The only way a birth certificate proves residency is if the newborn isn’t a foster child or given up for adoption, and only if they were six months of age or less.

I mentioned this and asked her to clarify her statement. Her snippy retort was, “I have rules that I have to follow and you need to bring in your birth certificate!” She thrust a piece of paper at me, ordered me to read their website and get familiar with their requirements, then shut her window so that she could end her day. Never mind the fact that I had read the website beforehand and ensured that I had the necessary documents. Need for a birth certificate was listed nowhere on their website, nor was it listed on the paper she threw at me before slamming her little partition closed. Since she had wasted so much of our time, there was no way to get to the county sheriff’s office to renew the CCL. We treated ourselves to sushi and made it home safely, in spite of an accident on the road which delayed us for another 45 minutes.

Solstice Day, Thursday 21 December was supposed to be spent relaxing and enjoying the shortest day of the year. Instead, we had to go out on treacherous roads which we had planned on avoiding. Since the original schedule had been disrupted, we decided to go to the county sheriff’s office first in order to get the CCL renewal out of the way. What a completely different experience!

The woman behind the counter was open and friendly, requesting clearly which documents were needed to complete the process. I had my photo re-taken, as the OR CCL is a photo ID form in and of itself, then sat down to fill out the paperwork so that it was current. By the time I had the paperwork completed, my renewed CCL was finished. In all, the process from start to finish took all of 30 minutes.

Back to Kelso, WA for the enhanced I.D. renewal. All required documents with me, including the certified copy of my birth certificate. I guess that is the new America for me, for the time being: always be prepared to show proof of being born in the USA, since I don’t fit the stereotype of the American-born Black woman!

After listening to the overtly effusive and unctuous apologies from the self-proclaimed “supervisor” of that DMV location, I received my enhanced identification for the state of Washington. I won’t have to deal with government employees – pleasant or incompetent – until 2023.

I’m sorting through my travel photographs, getting them organized into some semblance of chronological order, and came across some pictures I took of various tombstones in different cemeteries. As a child, I would go to the library and check out books, then ride my bicycle to the goat farm, or to the main cemetery – there were three in all – and sit behind one of the biggest tombstones to read. For me, it was a place to be around people who weren’t bothered by my presence, and who wouldn’t bother me.

Cemeteries, to me, are peaceful and serene places. I also think that it would be nicer if trees were planted in memory of people. Still, the artwork of tombstones, and the tales they tell, are fascinating.

I drove that poor old beast into the ground, I fear – so, I have to use a loaner and a laptop until my shiny new “Maximum Overdrive” is built, LOL! It was a 6-year-old “Franken-puter,” which had a RaidMax (TM) Thunder V2 735-W power system, an AMD Radeon GPU (I don’t have the specs of that on-hand, LOL), a 500 Gb hard drive, all slapped on to the original Acer (C) motherboard and using the original “green drive.” It ran on the quad-core Intel (C) i3 processor, and the memory had been expanded to the maximum of 16 Gb. The new one I’m having built will make my old one look like a slug, I think!

My old one finally gave up the ghost on Saturday, literally right after my last blog posts; today is the first day that I’ve had reasonable access to a computer that I can work on, but what in the ever-living hell happened to my WordPress layout?!? What I’m seeing is complete, boring crap at the moment…a blank, grey page with no personality – not like the other layout, with things nicely organized where they should be! Oh, well…at least I’m flexible. I’ll get used to this boring-ass, plain, vast nothingness – I guess it helps other people write better, but it’s mind-numbing, to me! This post will look boring when I publish it, too…no purty pictures for all to enjoy – so sad, so sad…

Anyway…had to drive two hours to Vancouver to drop the dead CPU off and retrieve the data, then decide if I wanted to have a gaming powerhouse built – and that was a pretty easy decision! Can’t wait to see the shiny, new model, especially since it will be attached to a shiny, new curved-screen monitor! I’m tired of fighting glare from the window, since it’s been far more sunny here the past two summers. Also, I just might…MIGHT, mind you – get a new mouse and some better headphones. If I’m going to be live-streaming, I need proper gaming gear!

After discussing, debating over, and finalizing the specs for my new computer, it was time for lunch…and I needed sushi! Had that at a place I would go to after work on Fridays, only two blocks from where I lived. Plenty of leftovers to bring home, which I am snacking on as I type this, LOL! Sushi for brekkies…good stuff!

I hung my Wheel of the Year on Sunday, and realized that I wouldn’t be able to do my Lughnasadh / Lammastide post – but I think that the pantheon forgives me for that lapse, as it was unavoidable. Poop doth occur, after all!

That sums up my weekend adventure – and no, I’m not suffering from gaming withdrawals or anything like that, believe it or not! The weather has been fantastic, and I’ve been out in the garden, out on the beach, or out in the sun-room, sweating on the elliptical and the home gym. Life is good…later, ‘gators!

I hope that I can finally relax, today! This week has turned out busier than I expected – but, that always seems to happen when I have good posts planned out, LOL!

I had to attend a funeral on Wednesday; that of a friend of a friend of a friend, an old biker dude who had cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, and various other health issues related to hard drugging in his younger years. He had heart issues, too – had some major infection that required open-heart surgery about five years ago, so he lived a bit longer than he expected to. The last surgery he had, last week, was all his body could take. Life is indeed too short…

My phone is giving me hassles and won’t allow me to upload my latest pictures! I had some lovely shots of sushi and oysters on the half-shell, and a couple of pictures of my favourite bridge in Portland, Oregon: the majestic St. John’s Bridge. It is Gothic in design, to my eyes!

My verbal thrashings will have to wait until tomorrow…I haven’t had time to get them crafted, yet! This is why I rarely schedule things; an unscheduled day always goes much smoother for me than a scheduled one, and that includes blog-posts! Speaking of which, I have allowed “SypherPK’s” comment through for everyone’s viewing pleasure – also, so that you can see what “he” said in the original comment, and so that my dear readers will know that I didn’t edit any of “his” words!
XD

Enjoy these three songs – two played at the funeral, and the last is one that I would want played when my ashes are finally scattered to the four winds…time for me to catch up on a bit of reading of the many blogs that I follow!

So, a funny thing happened the other day – my computer died! It was more or less unexpected, since I thought that I could dredge some life out of the failing, 635w power-supply for another month or so…I was wrong, LOL

I was in the middle of editing a post, and the computer cut off with no warning. Just…POOF – lights out, nobody home…complete silence. I immediately turn off the switch on the back of the computer and unplug the power cable, and disconnect it from the router. I call our computer service guys and let them know the problem, and say that it might have finally given up the ghost. I let them know what steps I took when the power failed – they said it was a good thing to do and that I should press the top power key a few times as well. I do so, then re-connect the power cord and turn the switch on the back of the computer to the ‘ON’ position. I hear a loud *POP* and smell that horrible ozone smell that you don’t want emitting from your computer or any other electronic device! The tech on the phone says, “Bring it in to us first thing in the morning.” It looked pretty grim…the way it smelled made me think that it looked like this on the inside:

…but, it wasn’t as bad as I feared – all that was needed was to replace the old, 650w power-supply with a Raidmax® Thunder™ V2, 735w powerhouse! It’s very nice, and whisper-quiet…the fan is like a zephyr.

Anyway, I’m going to get to work on some weekend posts, then I’ll sit back and do a bit of blog-reading later on this evening…I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone has been up to during the past few days!

Sitting here with a cup of coffee in hand, just thinking…I’ve always been more introspective than anything. If something goes wrong, I go inside and analyse it – must be the moon in Virgo thing. Instead of (or after) getting emotional, I turn it over and over in my hands, looking at it and picking it apart. The dog with the bone, shredding the gristle and cracking it open to get at the marrow inside. Tenacity. Grit. Drive, dedication, and determination – those are my qualities. Those are the things I live by. For some reason, though, there are people who want to slam your life and experiences. They choose to dismiss what you have gone through and demand that you acknowledge THEM. THEY are important, not you! Such psychopathy and narcissism is literally, physically nauseating to me.

I was thinking about this because of a recent comment made to me. Instead of reacting and responding to the vitriol and nonsense, I decided to sit and examine it for a bit this morning – I do my best thinking and writing in the mornings, and pretty much always have…my night owl tendencies are another topic, entirely! Anyway, while I was examining the comment, the town sirens began to sound. For those who live in areas where natural disasters are common, you might have a similar emergency system: if there is an event that requires evacuation, the sirens will sound and you must take prompt action pertaining to said event. There are monthly, bi-monthly, and weekly tests of these various systems, ranging from tsunami warnings to Amber Alerts. Growing up in Southeast Alaska, our emergency warning systems were the public radio and any CBs, shortwave, marine, or HAM radios various residents owned and operated. Living in South Dakota for a time exposed me to the klaxon system: massive sirens clustered on a single pole, radiating in all directions in a specific neighbourhood, or a single rotating horn of impressive decibel volume – the rotating ones were usually located near schools or hospitals, from what I saw.

At any rate, I have survived earthquakes, tornadoes, intense thunderstorms, and blizzards. I know about wildfires, flash-floods, tsunami, and avalanches. There are some people who are clueless about those events, just as I am clueless about dyslexia or privilege. I know that these things exist, but I have never experienced them personally. I won’t tell another that their experience is right or wrong, or that it didn’t happen…but for some reason, other people have done this to me throughout my life. Those people demand that I acknowledge THEIR lives without giving so much as a thought to my life, my experiences, and what I attempt to communicate. ’tis a strange thing, indeed…

Oh, well – there are some things in life that will never be answered, no matter how much we try! Enjoy these three Thursday songs…time for me to run some errands and do a little bit of housework.

Thank you, Jacqueline, for noticing my little place over here…your nomination is greatly appreciated! We have something in common…I also did a bit of modeling in my 20s, so that was interesting to learn about you.
🙂

Time to “pay this forward” – perhaps my words and thoughts will be a bit less scattered, now that the recent Mercury retrograde phase has ended, LOL – but, I’m doing ‘The Rules of Engagement’ a little differently than has been listed…so, the residuals are still present!

The Rules of Engagement:
1. Select other blogs you want to give the award to.
2. You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you.
3. Write a post to show your award.
4. Give a brief story of how your blog started.
5. Give a piece of advice or two to new bloggers.
6. Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
7. Attach the award to the post (right click and save, then upload).
8. Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them.
9. Provide a link to the award post you created.

My blog, here, started as an attempt to re-enter the blog-o-sphere after a 5-year hiatus. I’m writing an autobiography and thought that this would be a way to keep the creative juices flowing as I bring it to completion. I am also working on writing daily, no matter how small an amount, to keep my brain and tongue sharp…so, I write about things that pique my interest, tickle my funny-bone, irritate and annoy me, or make me go “Oh, really?”

I originally had a blog on Blogger but I wasn’t happy with what I was writing there, so I just let it die. I also had a MySpace account and used the blogging feature there to talk about music, gaming and personal hobbies, but that went away as well…I just let it fade and fossilize. The third time was the charm, apparently – this blog has been going strong for 5 years! I hope to keep meeting other writers, pagans, and lovers of life over the next five years…and beyond!

My piece of advice to new bloggers would be to read, read, and read some more! Search out blogs that share your interests and get to know the people behind them. For the heck of it, find one or two blogs that you would never have thought of following and meet some entirely new people who might have some interesting, unique perspectives!

Time for the Q & A…my answers are below each question.

1. What makes you happy?
A: Little things…an unexpected call from a friend; watching the birds and animals outside of my house, thunderstorms, rainbows, a good song playing on the radio 5 minutes after I think about it.

2. If your life was turned into a movie, what actor would play you?
A: Lupita Nyong’o and / or Grace Jones.

3. What’s your favorite memory?
A: Seeing a monarch butterfly up close, as it fluttered past me when I was crossing trolley tracks in San Francisco with my dad. I was 3 at the time, and my favourite book then was about monarch butterflies and their migration.

4. What is your greatest strength or weakness?
A: My greatest strength seems to be my weakness. I’m used to doing things myself, and I’m good at it. I get things done – others see me and assume that I need no assistance – but I never know when, or who, or how to ask for help when I really need it…and sometimes, I do.

5. What do you feel most proud of?
A: That’s a tough one to answer without sounding arrogant, LOL – but, I’d have to say that the fact that I keep my word is something to be proud of.

6. What is your favorite music?
A: Anything that suits my mood at the time, and gets me dancing no matter what my mood is!

7. If you could only keep 5 possessions, what would they be?
A: Photo album, knife, chain mail, camera, backpack.

8. If you win a lottery what would you do?
A: If it was sizeable enough, I would ensure that my mother, father, and brother have their health-care needs attended to for the rest of their days. I would ease the financial burdens of my sisters. I’d pay off my student loans, get a nice wardrobe, laptop, and camera set – then I’d travel, travel, travel!

9. What are you most afraid of?
A: Feeling inadequate.

10. How would your friends describe you?
A: My genuine friends would describe me as a warm, caring person who gives great advice and works hard – “beautiful” and “frighteningly intelligent” are also top descriptors. My acquaintances would describe me based on how they perceive me on any given day.
😉

I read and follow quite a few blogs, but can only think of five off of the top of my head that might want to be nominated! No pressure on those that I did nominate; if you wish to participate, you may. I know that it’s difficult at the best of times to acknowledge these awards! I have no questions at the moment, but if you’d like to share five fun facts about yourself with me, feel free to do so.